"El Pow!"?

 I always wondered about this annual. No humour just action strips by European artists. Tried toi buy the rights to these back when Odham's was folding as IPC/Fleetway wanted mainly humour strips.  Last night IO had a message from someone who was in Odham's management and who I used to be in contact with a lot.  He asked whether we could chat by phone so I said yes.

The conversation turned to this particular annual and I mentioned all the trouble I had trying to get the characters. The response was "Oh, they couldn't sell them they were reprints from European publications" which is not what I had been told over the years.  He offered to check with the person who used to deal with these things (now in his 70s) so I said okay.

Message this morning: "Confirmed that all strips were from a European agency and also published around Europe.  It was cheaper than getting new material to fill an annual."

Bloody hell. Not unusual though as European material was cheaper to buy in and not sure why Odham's never just reprinted old streps -it was work for hire in those days. Now, one of the suggestions was that this was "taking advantage of a tax dodge" which I would believe as that was going on for many, many decades.

At least it  explains the odd characters and why one was wearing a Spanish Cordobes hat!